Do you take people at their word?

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This isn't a trustworthiness question (cf lateness/bagging off). After Tom's 'grower not shower'* ruminations, I was thinking that one of the reasons I can be slow with people is that I'm maybe too literal with them, this in re. emotional/interpersonal stuff. So if someone says 'I don't want to talk about it' I assume that they don't wanna, and delicately step around the subject. If they briefly mention their new girlfriend Alice, I wait for them to furnish more details in case they don't want to be x-questioned. But at least 50% of the time 'I don't want to talk about it' means 'please prod me to do exactly that', and a casual mention of Alice means 'please make a conversational opening in which I can sing her praises'. I maybe project my general embarrassment onto the other person unless I'm pretty confident of them. So, do you?

[*put this way, 'grower not shower' sounds like my friend D who spends a lot of time at his allotment and for whom personal hygiene isn't way up on the list of priorities.]

― Ellie, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes. And I regularly get accused of being a bit thick for doing so.

― RickyT, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But at least 50% of the time 'I don't want to talk about it' means 'please prod me to do exactly that', and a casual mention of Alice means 'please make a conversational opening in which I can sing her praises'. I maybe project my general embarrassment onto the other person unless I'm pretty confident of them. So, do you?

All the time -- I think this may be one of my biggest problems. It's not that I'm terrible at reading people, but more a case of me being unsure of myself and figuring they probably don't want to talk about it with me anyway. A lot of the time I figure people are talking about things with me just because I happen to be around and not because they actually want to talk to me.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think I can usually tell when friends are using doublespeak to manoeuvre the conversation in a certain way, if I know them well. If you know people well enough they'll just come out with what's bothering them any way. All my gang do. Bloody thesps!

― Will, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm kind of aware of what these cues mean and am even worse because I choose to ignore them a lot of the time. I have a Samaritan Complex a mile wide and try to avoid getting involved in other people's problems/issues in case I end up becoming a limpet and get irrationally jealous and angry when they *don't* talk to me about something.

― Tom, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's hard for me not to view this as a trustworthyness issue.

Mainly because, well, I've learned by experience to *have* to look beyond people's literal assertations. When you've been dealing with passive aggression and manipulation for a long time, you learn to play the "Let's Guess The Other Person's Subtext" game. To the point where you almost become incapable of taking people literally.

(Does "I feel ill and don't want to go out tonight" mean that they just don't feel very well, or does it mean that *I've* supposedly done something wrong, and they're angry at me, and there's going to be this weird passive aggressive game where I have to figure out what's wrong, and if I *don't* figure out what's wrong, it clearly means that I don't care enough about them...?)

So I tend to over-compensate completely the other way, and look for secret meanings, and try to figure out what the person really wants to talk about. Even when it *does* turn out to be the literal meaning.

― kate, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes i do because I trust that others are being honest as me. And I'm gullible. I suppose it can be a libelity but I also think it's a good point.

― Samantha, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sometimes, but I am very sceptical of boasts and promises from people I do not know. But I think I'm okay at interpreting what people mean, or what they are really saying.

― james, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes. Except when I need to, when I assume they're kidding. Argh. For example, I am so bad at working out whether people don't actually want me around but are being too polite to say so that I have sometimes told people that if they don't want me around they should tell me to fuck off, except then if they do tell me to fuck off I have no idea whether they're kidding or not. People are so confusing. So is the choice between feeling like an out-of-place hanger-on when I go out or sitting at home and having no social life.

I also feel a bit useless and unhelpful when talking about people's problems, though I don't avoid it as such, either they just never want to talk about it with me or I decide they don't actually want to or that I'd be prying. The other way round I just feel that I'd be imposing. So I never have particularly revealing conversations with anyone, generally conversations just go: [nervously] "Are you OK?" / "Yeah..." / "Righto. Good. Well, say if I can do anything." [pretends to be busy for a bit, scampers away again]

I'm also really gullible, although this is less because I actually believe anything and more because I don't like saying, "Ha ha ha, no, that's bollocks!" to people I don't know very well.

― Rebecca, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes I doas I have no reason not to. Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

two years pass...

revive!

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Monday, 1 March 2004 23:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I am still taking people at their word, unfortunately.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 00:03 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not...let this fucker die!

― billislord, Tuesday, 2 March 2004 00:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I always want to but I don't think I can anymore (if that even comes close to making any sense).

― Kenny Blankenship (Bryan), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 05:48 (twenty-one years ago)

I do. But their word is, shall we say, enriched by their body language, and their history.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 05:50 (twenty-one years ago)

generally because when i say something like "i don't want to talk about it," i genuinely don't want to talk about it, i take things literally. and i'm so oblivious that when they don't mean it literally, i don't know it.

― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 06:01 (twenty-one years ago)

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